


the best is yet to come (come the day you’re mine)

by doctorkaitlyn



Series: in the vegas lights [2]
Category: Buzzfeed: Worth It (Web Series)
Genre: Coda, Established Relationship, Happy Ending, M/M, Non-Explicit Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-23
Updated: 2018-09-23
Packaged: 2019-07-16 03:26:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16077368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doctorkaitlyn/pseuds/doctorkaitlyn
Summary: Once upon a time, LAX was a storm that Steven could weather with nary a complaint. He’d let himself be buffeted along by the current, wouldn’t get impatient with the frenzied crowds packed around the baggage carousels or the assholes throwing punches over available cabs. He’d put up with all of it and would get back to his apartment with a few extra bruises, would manage to fend off his exhaustion for long enough to catch up with Evan before he dropped into bed and passed out, still in his clothes.But now, while the exhaustion remains, his patience has flown the coop. Every additional minute that he spends stuck in a river of pedestrian traffic or trying to sidle his way through the crowd gathered around the carousels is a minute that he could be spending on the freeway, a minute that he could spend getting closer to home.Or, rather, getting closer to Andrew, and really, for all intents and purposes, the two concepts are synonymous.(or, a glimpse at Andrew and Steven's lives one year after they find their way back to each other.)





	the best is yet to come (come the day you’re mine)

**Author's Note:**

> so awhile ago, I got the following prompt from a nonny: _Bartender Andrew AU! and Steven is patron and they slowly fall in love. Or maybe Steven is the other bartender and they still fall in love._ naturally, since I got the prompt a few days before I started posting _of all the gin joints_ , I had to turn it into a coda fic. so here's this!
> 
> title from [The Best is Yet to Come](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmf1AYgYj6I) by Frank Sinatra, a song that makes an appearance in the fic. beta'ed only by me, so any typos or fuck-ups are all my fault. dedicated to everyone who left such lovely comments on _of all the gin joints_ , I hope y'all enjoy! <3

Even though Steven’s flight gets in a few minutes after midnight, LAX is still nothing less than a storm of chaos.

Once upon a time, it was a storm that he could weather with nary a complaint. He’d let himself be buffeted along by the current, wouldn’t get impatient with the frenzied crowds packed around the baggage carousels or the assholes throwing punches over available cabs. He’d put up with all of it and would get back to his apartment with a few extra bruises, would manage to fend off his exhaustion for long enough to catch up with Evan before he dropped into bed and passed out, still in his clothes.

But now, while the exhaustion remains, his patience has flown the coop. Every additional minute that he spends stuck in a river of pedestrian traffic or trying to sidle his way through the crowd gathered around the carousels is a minute that he could be spending on the freeway, a minute that he could spend getting closer to home.

Or, rather, getting closer to Andrew, and really, for all intents and purposes, the two concepts are synonymous.

By the time he finally manages to get curbside and slide into the back seat of a cab, it’s close to one o’clock in the morning, and he has to bury a yawn into the crook of his elbow as they leave the blinding lights of the terminal behind. Leaning his head against the window, he keeps his eyes directed on the lampposts marching along the interstate, flickering on the other side of the cloudy glass like ghosts, and tries his best to keep from drifting off.

Even though he was only there for four days, he can still feel Vegas clinging to him like glitter smeared on a dancer’s skin. He can feel its hooks under his skin, trying to tug him back. Returning to the city always feels strange, like traveling back in time. There are echoes everywhere he goes, memories reverberating off what feels like every glittering sign and dimly lit side street, all of them playing back at a single glance.

Thankfully, the near continual feedback of those memories isn’t as painful as it once was, but even though it was over a year ago, he can still remember how it felt returning for the first time in three years, how it felt to see the Strip spread out below him on the flight in, glimmering so brightly in the purple twilight that it was almost painful to look at. He can remember how it felt to be met at the airport by his contact, who told him that they’d be staying at the Jewel due to an unforeseen problem with their initial room arrangements. He can still remember the abrupt swoop of his stomach and the weakness that had gone straight for his knees.

Every time he flies back in, he relives that for a moment, but with every subsequent trip he takes there, the city becomes easier to tolerate. There may be memories everywhere, but he isn’t really creating _new_ ones, not anymore, aside from the ones related to work, and those don’t count. Those memories aren’t ones that he’ll replay in his mind when he’s lying in bed at night, listening to the traffic, unable to sleep.

Vegas may still have its allure, and he has no doubt that he’s always going to be drawn to both its brightly lit vistas and darkest corners, but all of his new memories, the ones that mean something, are awaiting him in LA. 

By the time the cab pulls up outside of the bar that Andrew works at, there’s only half an hour until closing time. There’s only a handful of cars remaining in the parking lot, and the rattling of the wheels of Steven’s suitcase over the pavement seems entirely too loud given the surroundings. It’s not much louder inside; there are a few murmured conversations happening in the booths lining one wall, and soft crooner music is drifting from the old-fashioned jukebox in the back corner, but it’s clear that things are well on the way to winding down for the night. The stools marching alongside the bar on the other side of the room are half-occupied, their inhabitants busy talking to each other or staring down at their phones or the depths of their glasses.

And on the other side of the gleaming, polished bar, back to the rest of the room as he wipes out a glass, bathed in ruby red light that makes him look like something out of an old painting, is Andrew. 

It’s not the first time Steven has seen him on the job, but the sight never fails to send him back into the past. Sometimes, he’s thrown back to the very first night they met, when he’d spun around from his tour group to introduce them to Brent and had instead been met with one of the most handsome (and confused looking) people that he’d ever seen. Sometimes, it’s a memory that is a little vaguer, a portmanteau of all the nights where he’d gotten off a little early and headed down to the lounge to watch Andrew ply his craft, to watch his nimble fingers effortlessly toss drinks together without spilling a drop. 

On this night, he finds himself remembering the night that he returned to the Jewel for the first time in three long years. 

( _This is a mistake._

That is the thought filling Steven’s brain, playing on a loop like a skipping record, as he leans back against one of the pillars in the expansive lobby of the Jewel, shoulder to shoulder with a businessman checking his phone and a family of tourists consulting a map of the Strip. On the other side of the lobby is the entrance to the piano lounge, the blue light over the doors sticking out like a sore thumb against the backdrop of ruby and gold. If Steven listens carefully, he can catch a snatch of piano music over the overlapping conversations, the rattle of luggage being wheeled across the floor and the ringing bells from the nearby slots. 

As much as he would like to sit down and get lost in the music for a little bit, there’s no chance of that happening, because it’s all too possible that there’s someone else in there, someone that he’s thought about almost every single day for the last three years, someone that he occasionally misses so strongly that he can barely stand it. 

_Andrew_ might be in there. 

The longer he stays leaning back against the pillar, the louder his thoughts get, until they almost block out every other sound in the room. The longer he lingers around, the more he risks the chance of Andrew catching sight of him first, and that’s not something Steven knows how to handle. He has no idea how Andrew might react, what emotions might cross over his face, but at the very least, Steven wants to have some kind of game plan, wants to know, at the very least, how he’s going to handle _himself_.

But that’s not something he should even be thinking about. He shouldn’t be tempting fate like this, shouldn’t be leading himself into a situation that is probably going to end badly for everyone involved. What he should do is make his way over to the reception desk, check out of the hotel, and get another room somewhere else, come up with a viable excuse so that he can expense it back to the studio. 

What he should do is _leave_. 

Instead, his feet finally unstick themselves from the floor, somehow gleamingly polished even though it’s been crossed by thousands of feet in the last twenty-four hours, and he crosses the room. As he gets closer to the lounge’s entrance, the rest of the lobby fades out, until the only sounds he can hear are the piano on the other side of the door and his own heart pounding in his ears. He doesn’t allow himself to stop – if he pauses, even for a second, he’s going to lose all of his nerve. He’ll retreat back upstairs to his room and throw himself into work until he passes out with his laptop still open in front of him. 

He’s too committed to turn back now.

Pushing open the door, he slides inside. It’s so much darker in the lounge than the lobby that it takes his eyes a moment to adjust. There’s a deep blue spotlight trained on Shane, who is crooning an old Sinatra classic with his eyes closed. Even though every ounce of instinct in his body tells him to turn back around or, at the very least, hide himself in the dimmest corner of the room, Steven forces himself to look away from Shane and towards the bar. 

His heart stops. 

There’s only one person behind the bar, and even though his back is turned to the room, Steven still recognizes Andrew, recognizes the breadth of his shoulders and the slope of his neck. Déjà vu swarms through his mind, and it feels like there’s suddenly a dozen versions of him standing in the same spot, watching a dozen different Andrews and having a dozen different emotions. It feels like there’s a tidal wave hovering above his head, ready to drop atop him and sweep him out to sea. 

He walks further into the shadow of the wave, weaves his way through the clusters of tables, and slides onto the stool directly behind Andrew. It still doesn’t feel like his heart is beating, and now his lungs have failed as well. He’s barely conscious of drumming his fingers against the wooden surface of the bar; he’s too focused on every detail of Andrew that he can make out from this angle, too focused on the way his shirt and vest cling to his shoulders and his waist, on the slightly crooked line where his haircut tapers off on the back of his neck.

“Be there in a second,” Andrew says without turning around. How Steven manages to dredge up a response so quickly, and how the words don’t shake when they leave his throat, he doesn’t know. 

Maybe he’s been in Hollywood too long. 

“Take your time.” 

He can pinpoint the exact moment where realization clicks in Andrew’s brain. His entire body goes stiff, and he stops scrubbing at the cash register in front of him. It feels like an eternity where he stands there, utterly motionless, and with each second that ticks by, Steven becomes even more convinced that he’s made a huge mistake. Maybe, if he moves fast enough, he can get off the stool and leave the room before Andrew turns around. Maybe it’s not too late to check out of the hotel and move across the street. 

Before he can move, Andrew turns around. 

Somehow, impossibly, he’s even more handsome than he was the last time Steven saw him. There’s the beginnings of a beard clinging to the solid line of his jaw, and his forearms, exposed by the rolled up sleeves of his shirt, look stronger. His eyes are more beautiful than Steven remembered, catch the lights in a way that none of Steven’s memories or photographs could do justice to. His mouth is parted slightly, and there’s a whorl of emotions blanketing his face, confusion and sadness and anger. 

Steven has no idea what Andrew is going to say to him. Maybe he’s not going to say anything at all – that wouldn’t be surprising, considering how thoroughly he’d closed himself off, towards the end of their relationship – but Steven has to at least _try_ to start a conversation. 

He’s made it this far, after all.

So, when Andrew still doesn’t show any sign of speaking, he takes a deep breath and forces a smile onto his face. 

“Hi, Andrew.”) 

Shaking his head and dislodging the memory from his head, Steven picks up his suitcase so that the creak of the wheels on the polished floor doesn’t ruin the surprise, carefully picks his way across the room, and hops up onto a stool at the very end of the bar, where the brighter, rose-tinted light bulbs marching above the rows of bottles don’t reach very well.

“Be right there,” Andrew says without looking up, sleeves rolled up to his elbows, navy blue tie resting perfectly against his white button-up. Steven doesn’t answer; instead, he takes the next few seconds to try and calm the giddiness threatening to overtake him, fighting for space with warm contentment at the fact he’s finally home. After another moment of scrubbing, Andrew mutters something at the glass and shoves it aside, and Steven can’t help but laugh - it reminds him entirely too much of the way Andrew rolls his eyes and calls Cornichon a weirdo when she does something particularly strange.

“Sorry,” Andrew says as he turns around. If he was planning on saying anything else, the words don’t come out; instead, his mouth curves into a soft, utterly beautiful smile. After glancing at the customers seated nearby, presumably to make sure that they don’t need anything, he walks over to Steven’s end of the bar. “I thought you weren’t back until the morning.”

“It _is_ morning,” Steven answers with a laugh, glancing at the clock over the bar for emphasis. “Technically, at least.”

Andrew rolls his eyes, but his smile only grows more luminous. “You know what I mean.”

“I didn’t feel like waiting that long, so I changed my flight yesterday.” Dropping his elbows to the bar, leaning forward off the seat and pitching his voice low, he continues, “What’s your policy on kissing customers?” It’s not the best line he’s ever come up with, not by a long shot, and he can’t bring himself to say it with a straight face, but considering that it’s nearly two o’clock in the morning and Andrew is laughing at him fondly, as warm as a glorious summer day, he also can’t bring himself to regret it.

“You haven’t ordered anything yet,” he answers, reaching out and curving one warm hand around Steven’s cheek. Steven automatically leans firmly into the touch. “So you’re not actually a customer. The policy doesn’t apply.” 

It’s not exactly the most solid logic in the world, but frankly, since it works out in his favor, Steven isn’t going to question it.

“Good,” he replies, leaning up a little further so that he can meet Andrew halfway. The kiss is brief, barely more than a peck, but it makes the warm contentment in Steven’s chest flourish like a campfire sparking to life. Pulling back, Andrew presses another kiss to the tip of his nose, and Steven scrunches his face up even as he bites back the urge to wrap his fingers tight around Andrew’s tie and pull him back in.

“Do you want me to make you anything?” Andrew asks, pressing more kisses to Steven’s temple and the top of his head. “On the house.” If it was any other time, Steven would consider taking him up on the offer, but as is, he’s pretty sure that even a single drink would be enough to put him right to sleep.

“Water would be nice,” he answers, jaw quivering as he tries valiantly to hold back a yawn. 

“Okay.” After pressing another kiss to the corner of Steven’s mouth, Andrew walks back down to the other end of the bar. It takes him a few moments to actually return; the bar is beginning to empty out, and there’s a steady stream of people paying off their tabs before they disappear into the night. By the time Andrew sets a tumbler of water with a fresh slice of lemon floating on top in front of Steven, only three of the other stools are occupied.

“Fancy,” Steven says, nudging the lemon slice with his pinkie.

“Habit,” Andrew corrects, but there’s a distinct pink tinge to his cheeks that wasn’t there before he set the glass down. “I shouldn’t be too much longer.”

“I’ll be here. Wake me up if I fall asleep.”

Once Andrew has walked away again, Steven gets his phone out, checks his notifications and answers a few emails for work before he plugs his headphones in and starts watching a movie that he downloaded from Netflix. It’s surprisingly interesting, and he quickly finds himself invested in it. When Andrew drops a hand on his shoulder from behind, the touch is so unexpected that Steven jumps and drops his phone to the bar with a clatter.

“Sorry,” Andrew says, pressing a kiss underneath Steven’s ear before Steven spins around on the stool. “You ready to leave?” He’s loosened his tie a little, and the top two buttons of his shirt are undone, and as much as Steven likes how he looks when he’s totally put together, he thinks that he prefers this version of Andrew, the slightly disheveled one, if only because it usually means that Andrew is all his for the rest of the night. 

“Yeah.” With a nod, he slides off the stool and grabs his suitcase. “I’m ready.”

The street is almost entirely quiet when they step aside; there’s no traffic in sight, and most of the other businesses and homes lining the street are darkened. The sky is deep orange, light pollution at its finest. Andrew’s hand is warm and familiar in his, and even though Steven only drops it for long enough to stash his suitcase in the back of Andrew’s car and climb into the passenger seat, those precious few seconds apart feel entirely too long.

“Do you want me to take you home?” Andrew asks once they’re both inside. With the doors closed, what little ambient noise filled the air outside is cut off, and the inches of space between them suddenly feel charged, like a river of current flowing through a battery. Some of Steven’s tiredness immediately ebbs away as he squeezes Andrew’s hand and shakes his head.

“Can we go back to your place?” Flicking his eyes from their intertwined fingers to Andrew’s face, half-hidden in shadow, he continues, “I don’t want to wake Evan up.” It’s a weak excuse - even if Evan _is_ home (which isn’t likely) and has already gone to bed (even more unlikely), he sleeps like the dead - and Steven is sure that Andrew _knows_ that it’s a weak excuse, but he doesn’t comment on it. Instead, he brings their clasped fingers to his lips and presses a kiss to the back of Steven’s hand, right under his knuckles. 

“Of course we can,” he murmurs, lips catching on Steven’s skin. “You never have to ask.”

The drive to Andrew’s is uneventful and swift; there’s little movement on the roads, and the traffic lights are in their favor, flicking over from red to green whenever they approach an intersection. Andrew’s street is quiet and empty, and when Steven’s suitcase bounces against the steps as he follows Andrew up to the third floor, the sound echoes like a firework exploding in the sky. He has to pause a few stairs down while Andrew unlocks his apartment; the landing outside his door is too tiny to fit the both of them. Even before the door opens, Steven can hear Cornichon meowing and scratching on the other side, and as soon as he’s inside, he sets his suitcase aside so that he can scoop her up in his arms. After meowing once, she starts enthusiastically licking the end of his nose with her abrasive tongue, and Steven laughs even as he winces.

“I think she missed me,” he remarks, carefully kicking out of his shoes so that he doesn’t jostle her. Andrew laughs as he turns on the light over the stove.

“She just likes attention.” As soon as he grabs her bag of food to fill her dish, she starts squirming in Steven’s arms, and he sets her down so she can run over and eat. “And food.”

“So she takes after you then?”

Andrew glances up, and his face cracks into another one of those luminous smiles. 

“Yeah,” he answers, reaching down to scratch the top of Cornichon’s head. “Guess so.” Dropping the bag of cat food onto the kitchen table (a decision that he’ll probably regret later, Steven is willing to bet), he crosses the narrow kitchen, slides his arms around Steven’s waist and hauls him in close. Immediately, Steven tilts his head down for a kiss, soft and lingering, one that heats him to his very core.

“I missed you,” Andrew murmurs against his mouth when he pulls back an inch or so. His fingers are wrapped up tightly in the loose fabric of Steven’s jacket where it’s draped over the small of his back, like he’s afraid Steven is going to slip away from him. 

“Missed you too,” Steven answers, taking a moment to simply savor Andrew’s presence, the warmth of his body and the feeling of his skin against Steven’s fingertips, before he presses back in for another kiss. This time, they don’t separate for a long while, not even when Andrew starts walking backwards, tugging Steven with him around the flimsy dividers he’s used to section off the combined kitchen and living room of his apartment from his bedroom. Eventually, Steven feels the side of his leg bump into the edge of Andrew’s mattress, and he turns so that his back is to it before he pulls away, gasping for breath, cheeks and jaw tingling from the scratch of Andrew’s beard against his skin.

“We can go to sleep, if you want,” Andrew says, curling his fingers loosely around Steven’s waist. “If you’re tired.” Steven _is_ tired, there’s no doubt about that, but he’s not ready to go to bed quite yet; even if it doesn’t end up leading anywhere, he wants to kiss Andrew for a little while longer, make up for some more lost time.

“Maybe in a bit,” he answers, sliding his arms free from Andrew’s neck so that he can start working on the buttons of his shirt. Once he’s successfully popped all of them open, he reaches up to fully release the knot of Andrew’s tie. When his fingertips trace over the hollow at the base of Andrew’s throat, Andrew shudders slightly and tightens his hands on Steven’s waist.

“Okay.”

Once Andrew’s button-up and tie have landed on the floor, Steven shuffles back a step and sits down on the edge of the mattress. Andrew makes a move as if to follow him, but Steven stops him by planting both hands on Andrew’s hips and gathering the soft fabric of his t-shirt between his fingers. Pushing it up to Andrew’s ribs, he leans in and carefully presses his mouth to Andrew’s stomach. Andrew shudders again, and one of his hands drops into Steven’s hair; the other roughly yanks his shirt over his head and sends it flying across the room. Steven takes advantage of all of the bare skin at his disposal by sliding his hands around to Andrew’s back and pressing his fingertips into the muscles lining Andrew’s spine. He trails more kisses just above the waistband of Andrew’s pants, takes his time with it, occasionally brings out his teeth just so he can feel Andrew’s fingers tighten in his hair. Eventually, when his own impatience gets the best of him, he brings his hands back around so that he can work on divesting Andrew of more of his clothes. 

“Steven,” Andrew sighs as Steven opens his belt with a quiet _clink_. It sounds like a prayer, or maybe a plea.

“Love you,” he murmurs in response, skimming the words against Andrew’s hip as he drops his belt to the ground and reaches for his zipper. Before he can draw it fully down, Andrew slides his hand free of Steven’s hair and pushes gently at his shoulder, urging him back onto the mattress. If it wasn’t for the tiredness playing at the fringes of his mind, Steven would think about resisting, think about carrying on until Andrew was whining for him, until he was saying _please_. As is, with a final brush of his mouth against Andrew’s stomach, he falls back onto the bed and rearranges himself so that his head is on one of Andrew’s pillows. There’s a soft _whoosh_ of fabric rustling over skin, and when Andrew crawls up between Steven’s splayed legs, he’s down to only his briefs. 

“I’m glad you’re home,” he murmurs, bunching up all of Steven’s layers at once, his jacket and sweater and shirt, and pushing them up his chest. Steven has to swallow back a sigh; even though it’s been months, he doesn’t think that he’ll ever be used to how it sounds to hear Andrew say _home_.

“Me too.” Before Andrew can get him tangled up, he sits up, slides his arms out of his sleeves and pulls everything over his head before he tosses it aside. The clump of fabric bounces off Andrew’s dresser and knocks something over, but it doesn’t sound breakable, so he only pauses for a moment before he curls one hand around the back of Andrew’s neck and tugs him back down into a kiss, knees pressing tightly against Andrew’s waist, heels hooked around the backs of his legs.

It feels like they’ve barely fallen into a rhythm again before Andrew pulls away. Steven tries to chase after him, but Andrew ducks his head and presses his mouth just underneath Steven’s ear instead, open-mouthed and hot.

“I really did miss you,” he murmurs. It sounds like less of a prayer this time and more of a solemn truth, like a secret confessed in the dark. Letting out a shaky breath and anchoring his fingers in Andrew’s hair as Andrew’s teeth skate gently along the line of his jaw, Steven tilts his head back into the pillow and closes his eyes.

“Missed you too,” he says, voice wavering into a moan as Andrew worries the skin over his pulse point between his teeth. It takes him a few moments to catch his breath so that he can continue talking. “It always feels weird, being back there without you.”

Andrew makes a noise of acknowledgment, a hum in the back of his throat, as he continues moving lower, mouthing at the base of Steven’s neck, the patch of skin between the branches of his collarbones. After a moment, the gentle press of his mouth turns firmer as he starts sucking a bruise there, and Steven digs his fingertips into the back of Andrew’s neck as he gasps. When Andrew’s teeth press into the skin, Steven sinks his own teeth into his bottom lip so he doesn’t cry out. 

“Feels weird being _here_ without you,” Andrew belatedly replies, once he’s apparently satisfied with his handiwork. There’s a distinct rasp to his voice that makes more heat bloom in Steven’s stomach, but the _meaning_ of the words is what makes heat flush in his face. He’s glad that the room is mostly dark, because he’s fairly sure that he’s probably cherry red from the tips of his ears down to his waist.

“Yeah?” he asks, nearly choking on the word as Andrew keeps moving downwards, using his mouth to mark a path down the center of Steven’s chest. Eventually, he hums again and nips at Steven’s navel.

“Yeah. It’s too quiet without you.”

Steven lets out a wavering laugh as Andrew’s fingers reach for his belt. “The whole city is too quiet?” 

Andrew pauses, and Steven cracks open one eye and tilts his head down so he can look at him. He can’t quite make out the subtle nuances on Andrew’s face, but the unwavering weight of his gaze is enough for him to know that Andrew is being utterly serious.

“Yes. The whole city.”

Steven doesn’t know where to begin with that, doesn’t know how to parse it in his mind, especially not at this time of night. All he knows is that it is a _lot_ , and as much as he’s sure he’d enjoy what Andrew’s endgame seems to be, it suddenly seems imperative that he kiss him again, that he hold him as tight as he can.

He waits until Andrew has pulled the rest of his clothes off and flicked them over the edge of the mattress before he reaches out, slides his fingers back into Andrew’s hair and tugs gently, even though it feels like he might actually explode if Andrew doesn’t hurry up and come back to him.

“C’mere?” he asks. “Please?” Andrew nods and ducks his head to press a soft kiss to the inside of Steven’s thigh before he slides back up the bed, mattress divoting under his knees.

“Everything okay?” Steven nods rapidly and slides his hand down the back of Andrew’s head to the warm nape of his neck.

“Just wanted you back up here.” He places his free hand on Andrew’s stomach, just above the band of his briefs, and carefully glides his fingertips through the soft, dark hair growing there.

“Oh.” Andrew breaks off into a groan as Steven moves his hand a little lower to pluck at his waistband. “Okay.” With that, he falls back down into a kiss, one that makes Steven’s head spin so badly that he almost loses track of what he meant to do, almost forgets to slide his hand into Andrew’s briefs and wrap his fingers around the heavy, thick heat of him.

Almost.

It’s not the best angle in the world; Steven’s wrist is kind of trapped between them, and it’s probably only a matter of time before it stiffens up. Every time he instinctively tries to roll his hips up for some kind of friction, he ends up pressing into his own arm, which is a little bit awkward. Thankfully, before he can try to figure out a better way to make things work that doesn’t involve putting too much of a pause on things, Andrew trails his fingertips up the underside of Steven’s arm and murmurs, “I have an idea. Just gotta grab something.”

“Okay.” Andrew rolls away from him and starts rummaging through his bedside table. After a moment, the drawer shuts with a clatter, and he shuffles back between Steven’s legs. A quiet popping sound tells Steven exactly what he grabbed, and a shudder runs down his spine, both at the anticipation of how cold the lube is going to be and how much easier it will make things. An errant drop lands on his hip, and he gasps quietly.

“Sorry,” Andrew murmurs, leaning forward and skimming a kiss up Steven’s cheek. One of his hands drops to the sheets at Steven’s side; the other one, slick and cool to the touch, wraps around both of them, and Steven’s back arches off the mattress as he presses up into the tight circle of Andrew’s fingers, into the slick drag of skin against skin. “That better?”

Steven nods and digs his fingers into the firm muscles of Andrew’s shoulders.

“Yeah,” he whimpers. “God, Andrew, so good.”

Aside from Andrew’s name, they’re the last coherent words he says for quite some time.

By the time the afterglow has faded some, Steven is so tired that he can barely keep his eyes open. Realistically, he knows that a shower would feel heavenly, but walking the roughly dozen or so steps it would take to get to Andrew’s bathroom feels impossible in his current state, so he decides to re-evaluate the situation in a few minutes.

“We should get up,” Andrew mumbles against Steven’s shoulder. He’s on his side, a few inches away from Steven, absently tracing his fingers in nonsensical patterns on Steven’s stomach, not bothering to avoid the spots where come and lube is drying on his skin. It’s a casual action, but there’s something almost obscene about it that makes weak tremors of arousal flutter in his stomach.

“Probably.” Steven turns and twists his head so that he can press his mouth to the top of Andrew’s head, where his hair is matted down with sweat. “In a minute.”

“You gonna be able to stay awake that long?”

Steven shrugs. “Gonna try my best.”

The quiet that falls between them, broken only by the sound of Cornichon batting a toy across the tiles in the kitchen, is as soothing as a weighted blanket. While he tries to summon enough energy to move, Steven lets his thoughts wander. They don’t go far - indeed, they only make it as far as the kitchen, to where his suitcase is still standing by the front door. More specifically, his mind wanders to the tiny box that is hidden in the very bottom, wrapped up in a clean pair of socks, buried underneath the rest of his clothes.

While his trip to Vegas had been jam-packed with meetings and business dinners and miscellaneous other tasks that emerged on the fly, he’d been able to find _some_ time for himself. He’d been able to find some time to catch up with friends, to take in some of Shane’s act, to even sleep in, on one particular day.

But more importantly, he’d also found some time to stop by one of the upscale jewelry stores located near the Strip. 

The ring that he’d picked out after two hours of looking is nothing fancy, almost nondescript in how plain it is: it’s just a simple white gold band, with no engravings or gemstones or special features. But the instant he’d seen it, tucked in the back of a display case, hidden behind far fancier rings, he’d known that it was perfect.

When he inhales deeply, Andrew’s hair tickles his nose. The smell of him, his shampoo and the faint scent of alcohol from the bar, is utterly comforting, and Steven lets out a content sigh and shivers slightly when Andrew’s fingertips gently skim over his hip.

He’s not ready to actually give Andrew the ring yet. He needs some more time to think things through, to plan not only the logistics of the actual proposal but their future together, needs some more time to be absolutely sure that it’s the best decision for both of them. 

But he’s ready to _be_ ready.

Even though both of their hands are sticky, Steven reaches out and catches Andrew’s hand so that he can link their fingers together tightly. Andrew hums contently and presses another kiss to Steven’s shoulder.

He’d been stubborn before. He hadn’t been willing to talk things through, hadn’t been willing to compromise or communicate, had crowded closer when Andrew needed space. He’d pushed too much, and Andrew had reacted by pulling away from him. In the end, they’d let each other go when they should have been clinging to each other.

While he can’t speak for Andrew, that’s not a mistake that Steven is going to make again. 

This time, he promises himself as he presses a kiss to Andrew’s forehead and closes his eyes, he’s not going to let go.

**Author's Note:**

> as always, I can be found on [tumblr.](http://banshee-cheekbones.tumblr.com/) :)


End file.
